Resizing internal floating windows in Visual Studio? Easy with the mouse right. Just a simple drag-n-drop. But for you keyboard fanatics, did you know you can resize floating windows from using keyboard shortcuts? This one will win bets in a Best of Visual Studio contest.
[ALT], [SPACE] = Context menu for floating window
No doubt you’ve seen how Visual Studio can dock tool windows in al kids of cool patterns, floating, docked, tabbed, etc. Did you know you can grab and move these tool windows with the keyboard?
[ALT]+[MINUS {-}] = Show Tool Window Move Menu
[ALT]+[F6] = Toggle Forward through all open Tool Windows
[CTRL]+[PgDn] = Move Right through tab groups in Tool Window
[CTRL]+[PgUp] = Move Left through tab groups in Tool Window
[SHIFT]+[F6] = Toggle Backwards through all open Tool Windows
Splitting windows/documents in multiple places can make your life much easier when working with a large number of documents. Check out the same document in split view to read the document in more than place (like top and bottom), or setup multiple documents side-by-side.
[MENU] Window|Split
[Footnote] Jan 8th, 8:15pm
Sorry for my voice in today’s screen cast – I’m currently befriending a bottle of Vitamin C to try and keep this sore throat in check. But I’m already behind on my new years resolution. There are over 300 of these tip tricks I need to video this year. It’s Jan. 8th, and I only have 4 videos, down 50% already. 🙂 It’ll be easy to catch up now, I already have the structure in place to pump out these videos.
Show and Hide White Space in documents.
[CTRL]+[R] + [CTRL]+[W] = Toggle Show|Hide White Space
[Footnote] Jan 8th, 8:15pm
Sorry for my voice in today’s video’s – I’m currently befriending a bottle of Vitamin C to try and keep this sore throat in check. But I’m already behind on my new years resolution. There are over 300 of these tip tricks I need to video this year. It’s Jan. 8th, and I only have 4 videos, down 50% already. 🙂 It’ll be easy to catch up now, I already have the structure in place to pump out these videos.
Block or Column select has to do with selecting text for copy/paste/cut actions. You’re probably already aware of [SHIFT]+[Arrow] to select left or right, or up or down. You’ve even in fact used these keys in combination with each other to get just he right selection. Throw the [ALT] key into the mix and check out what happens.
[SHIFT]+[Arrow Key] = Select one letter or line (for up|down) at a time
[SHIFT]+[CTRL]+[Arrow Key] = Word Select
[SHIFT]+[ALT] +[Arrow Key] = Block Select
[ALT] + Mouse Drag = Column|Block Select from mouse X,Y to new X,Y coordinates.
UPDATE :: DECEMBER 2009
Block Select get’s even better in Studio 2010, Watch Video 503 for more information.
I have also been deeply involved with local, regional, and global developer relations communities. Working with many cloud technologies, I currently hold several Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud certifications.
Hobbies: Programming. Problem Solving. Learning. SCUBA. Audio + Video Production. Live Streaming. Eating. Travel Geek.
